English football has a serious hangover and on Wednesday supporters are being
given an unwelcome dose of the hair of the dog – a friendly with Hungary.

What stretches credulity is that there are some 50,000 people prepared to go to Wembley to take a swig. That it is comparatively cheap surely does not make it any more palatable.

The timing of the game feels like an affront. England supporters are still struggling with the nausea-inducing flashbacks of the South African humiliation (Algeria!), and a tepid display against mediocre opposition will bring a high risk of open revolt in the stands.

As an official Fifa international date it is Fabio Capello's only chance to see his players before the Euro 2012 qualifiers against Bulgaria and Switzerland next month. Had this fixture been cancelled, as some had hoped, the England manager would have been flayed – with the benefit of hindsight – for failing to prepare sufficiently. So now he and his players must simply brave what bodes to be a singularly unpleasant experience.

There will be grisly fascination to watching it all. Capello made one of his first tasks in charge to rid his players of their fear of playing at Wembley. That work was undone on the turf of Cape Town and Bloemfontein.

Walking out of the Wembley tunnel, the players will be nervous about the fans' response. England supporters have not been shy of booing their own team and their patience will be understandably short. Those players who are retained from South Africa can expect a rough ride.

Selling tickets for this August slot is never easy and, in this context, getting 50,000 – even with tickets reduced to £20 – says something about the remarkable durability of England supporters. What with the cost of season ticket purchases, the state of the economy and, above all, the rubbish that was served up in South Africa, you might have thought Paris Hilton's My New BFF (ITV2: what a scheduling clash) would have proved unmissably alluring to those even contemplating the ride up the Jubilee Line or down the M40.

What, then, is Capello's best hope? In his last public appearance, in a marquee on the bleak outskirts of Rustenburg, he looked frazzled and tired, even weak. On Wednesday, he needs to appear refreshed and hungry for the challenge, to recover that aura of almost arrogant invincibility.

The fans will respond to a team who play with commitment and vibrancy. The dead and rotten wood has to be hacked away when the squad announcement is made on Saturday evening. The England camp are giving every indication that there will be substantial changes, but more important than a change in personnel is a change of method.

Hungary (apposite opposition with their history of English humiliation) are not very good. In their last two games, against the Dutch and the Germans, they shipped nine goals. So winning is not really going to be the problem. It is how they go about winning.

Capello is 64 and deeply conservative. Yet he must go against his instincts and appreciate that a radical alteration is needed to wash away the stale smell that clings to his squad. The baffling adherence to a prehistoric 4-4-2 must end and Capello must revert (because he used it in the World Cup qualifiers) to a more fluid 4-2-3-1.

Emphasis must be placed on players with courage. Not the John Terry diving-header-into-concrete courage but the type that allows you to take a risk on the ball, to take responsibility for daring. That means the elevation of Adam Johnson and, if handled with tact, Jack Wilshere. Playing fearlessly, they can both be inspirational.

In goal it is blindingly obvious that Joe Hart should start, while Michael Dawson will most likely partner Terry in the centre of defence. It might also be time for the evidently jaded Ashley Cole to give way to the exciting and enthusiastic Kieran Gibbs – at least until Cole regains his hunger. Theo Walcott and Gabriel Agbonlahor will bring raw pace. Whether Bobby Zamora, who would have gone to the World Cup had he been fit, can play as well as a lone striker for England as he did last season for Fulham is another of this fixture's sub-plots.

Ultimately, though, Capello must do everything he can to avoid this becoming a miserable afterthought to the World Cup. This game must go some way towards resembling a fresh start. Any more talk of fatigue is in itself tiring. England need to play with the wit, enthusiasm and – dare one say it – fun they lacked in South Africa. They could start, and this is a revolutionary idea, by trying to pass to each other.

Otherwise the road to Poland and Ukraine is going to be travelled by grim forced march.